Modern off-the-visor Helmet Mounted Display Systems (HMDS) present today’s pilots with unprecedented and intuitive access to flight, tactical, and sensor information for advanced situational awareness, precision accuracy, and pilot safety in all lighting conditions, day and night. In particular, integrated night vision sensors provide pilots with enhanced situational awareness under Very Low Light Level (VLLL) conditions. This in turn increases safety and recovery rate during carrier flight operations, especially under the Very Low Light Level conditions encountered on a moonless, overcast night. A recent GAO report identified a technical risk specific to Helmet Mounted Displays when operating under these conditions: light from the Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) backlight escapes through gaps between the pixels, creating a “green glow” on the screen, and limiting the pilot’s night adapted vision. This is problematic in particular for night carrier landings under Very Low Light Level background luminance conditions. This presentation will discuss the benefits and challenges associated with emissive microdisplay technologies for Helmet Mounted Display applications, and Organic LED (OLED) microdisplays in particular. Among the primary benefits of emissive display technologies is the potential to resolve the deficiency colloquially known as “green glow.” We discuss the challenges encountered during the development and integration of OLED microdisplays into an off-the-visor Helmet Mounted Display System.
Desires by customers for color helmet mounted displays (HMD) that are suitable for day and night viewing are being explored by several companies. One major area of difficulty for designers is selecting a shade of blue that is bright enough to be seen and that can be discriminated as blue in a bright ambient environment. Customers have concerns on how rich the color of blue must be to satisfy the pilot, but this may sometimes become a conflicting requirement of discrimination. Rockwell Collins is designing the next generation HMD and believes that color, if not a requirement, will be an expectation in the future. To this end Rockwell Collins has conducted testing on a full color HMD display with a goal of determining the best color blue/cyan for our design. Our goal is to determine the u’v’ coordinates on the CIE chart that meets both goals of brightness and discrimination. Our testing used a fixed wing HMD with a full color, 24 bit, OLED display. Multiple symbols and colors were used during the testing, and subjects were not aware of the goal of the study. It was found during the study that a much brighter blue/cyan can be presented and discriminated from other colors. Our paper will discuss the testing approach, and a summary of data and results. A conclusion is presented at the end of the paper of the HMD design impacts and implications of focusing less on color and more on discrimination.
Additive manufacturing is proving its relevancy across a wide spectrum of development, prototyping and manufacturing in the US. However, there is a desire to move the capability beyond modeling and structural components. The use of additive manufacturing techniques to fabricate low-cost optics and optical systems is highly desirable in a number of markets. But processes and techniques for successfully printing an optic are currently very new. This paper discusses early advances in printing optics suitable for commercial and military applications. Data from and analysis of early prototype lenses fabricated using one possible technique will be included and discussed. The potential for additive manufacturing of optics to open the design space for complex optics and reduce development time, lowering cost and speeding up time to market, will also be discussed.
In more than 40 years of development, the Helmet-Mounted Display (HMD) has become a key part of the equipment for fixed and rotary wing pilots and ground soldiers, proving to be a force multiplier and reducing user workload. Rockwell Collins has been a key player in the development of modern HMD technology and is currently fielding major HMDs supporting pilots around the world including the Joint Hemet Mounted Cueing System (JHMCS) and Strike Eye. This paper will outline the history of HMDs over the last 40 years for fixed wing, rotorcraft and soldiers and discuss Rockwell Collins’ role. We will discuss the development and testing required for introduction of HMDs into the modern pilot environment. Within the paper we will point out some of the misconceptions, facts and legends of HMDS.
KEYWORDS: Goggles, Analog electronics, Light sources and illumination, Night vision goggles, Night vision, Sensors, Prototyping, Night vision systems, Eye, Molybdenum
Digital Night Vision sensor technology has the potential to provide significant new night vision capabilities for military aviators. Before new capabilities can fielded, however, the combined sensor-processor-display chain must achieve a level of night vision performance on-par with current-generation photo-multiplier tube (PMT) - based night vision goggles across the entire range of lighting conditions. This paper provides an overview of Rockwell Collins’s design of an ISIE-11 based Digital Night Vision Goggle (DNVG) intended to eventually replace traditional PMT goggles in a variety of military aviation and infantry applications. It also reports on an initial series of evaluations performed by Boeing aircrew in laboratory and flight environments. Laboratory lighting levels ranged from "overcast starlight" to "full moon", and airborne evaluations in a light aircraft were conducted under "starlight" and "half-moon" conditions at a realistic tactical altitude. Each evaluation provided a direct comparison between a modern PMT NVG and the DNVG prototype. Inputs from the flight evaluation were subsequently implemented in DNVG image processing software.
KEYWORDS: Night vision systems, Video, Sensors, Night vision, Goggles, Analog electronics, Organic light emitting diodes, Head-mounted displays, Night vision goggles, Head
Digital night sensor technology offers both advantages and disadvantages over standard analog
systems. As the digital night sensor technology matures and disadvantages are overcome, the
transition away from analog type sensors will increase with new programs. In response to this
growing need RCEVS is actively investing in digital night vision systems that will provide the
performance needed for the future.
Rockwell Collins and Elbit Systems of America continue to invest in digital night technology and
have completed laboratory, ground and preliminary flight testing to evaluate the important key
factors for night vision. These evaluations have led to a summary of the maturity of the digital
night capability and status of the key performance gap between analog and digital systems.
Introduction of Digital Night Vision Systems can be found in the roadmap of future fixed wing
and rotorcraft programs beginning in 2015. This will bring a new set of capabilities to the pilot
that will enhance his abilities to perform night operations with no loss of performance.
Next generation night vision helmet mounted displays (HMDs) are expected to have higher resolution, larger field of
view and lower costs. These HMDs will be expected to provide real world images at starlight overcast with minimal
scintillation, improved dynamic range and symbology. VSI is developing a series of HMDs that will meet this demand
and will provide an overview of the capabilities in this paper. We will address the requirements and design conflicts
associated with the development of an all digital system. Finally, we will provide insight into the capability of an "all"
digital system and its potential future.
KEYWORDS: Head-mounted displays, Night vision, Night vision systems, Sensors, Video processing, Video, Photonics, Interfaces, Head, Night vision goggles
SA Photonics and Vision Systems International (VSI) are developing an innovative wide field of view digital night
vision head mounted display (HMD). This HMD has an 80 degree field of view and has been designed to minimize
weight, peripheral obscuration and forward projection. Digital night vision sensors enable electronic image enhancement
and VSI's Zero A/C Integration enables the HMD to be integrated with legacy aircraft and provide symbology overlay
and recording without the need for an expensive drive electronics box.
Next generation night displays are expected to have higher resolution, larger field of view and lower costs. These
displays will be expected to provide real world images at starlight overcast with minimal scintillation, improved dynamic
range and symbology. VSI is developing a series of displays that will meet this demand and will provide an overview of
the capabilities in this paper. We will address the requirements and design conflicts associated with the development of
an all digital system. Finally, we will provide insight into the capability of an "all" digital system and its potential future.
Vision Systems InternationalLLC has been tasked by several customers and users to develop a helmet mounted display system that can be used in day and night scenarios and accurate enough to be used as the primary display. To address this need, VSI has developed the Next Generation Helmet that is light weight for high G maneuvers, and has a wide field of view for night operations, with the accuracy required for a primary aircraft display.
With the advancement of high off bore-sight missiles helmet mounted displays (HMD) now play an important part in air-to- air tactics. Many options are available to the design of the helmet mounted display that impact performance cost and schedule. Choosing the correct combinations of design parameters is critical to a successful HMD design program.
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